Tender Flesh

I'm more than slightly embarrassed to admit that I'm a fan of some of Jess Franco's earlier output, but "Tender Flesh" is simply indefensible. No one watches a Franco film for great storytelling, true, but his better movies are likeable despite their flaws, and draw in aficionados of the bizarre with their surreal atmosphere, off-the-wall sets and fashions, and groovy music. "Tender Flesh" has none of these strengths; it's just a tired walk over old ground. Franco's done a version of "The Most Dangerous Game" before ("The Perverse Countess"), also with a naked Lina Romay (who looked great in the buff twenty years ago in "Female Vampire"; not here, though), but this "remake of a remake" has none of the off-kilter, loopy feel of that film. I didn't find it bizarre, shocking, or even entertaining, merely dull. Pick this up if and only if you have an unquenchable desire for Franco, no matter how loudly he scrapes the bottom of the barrel.